Domestic distractions

A lot has changed in Ireland since it last held the rotating EU presidency in 2004. From the social to the political, from dizzying highs to debilitating lows, in the past four decades Ireland has ridden a roller-coaster of change. When it takes over the presidency of the Council of Ministers on 1 January, it will not be the confident Celtic tiger that stewarded the EU in 2004.

Domestically, after almost five years of austerity politics, instability still rules. The current Fine Gael-Labour Party coalition – stitched together following the unprecedented collapse of the Fianna Fáil government in 2011 after it was forced to accept an EU/IMF bailout – remains beset by problems. The latest controversy to rock the coalition is an internal Labour party dispute.

Last week party chairman Colm Keaveney was expelled from its parliamentary group after he voted against the government on a social welfare bill. Despite calls for his sacking, Keaveney refused to step down, saying he represents the “grass roots” of the party.

Labour’s participation in a government implementing sometimes devastating austerity measures has always been uneasy. Its alliance with the socially conservative centre-right Fine Gael has never been comfortable. With the emergence of this latest controversy, some Labour party insiders are again asking whether they would be better off in opposition. But the uncertainty that a fresh round of elections would bring is a gamble too far for many.

In fact, the government has seemed afraid to make any cabinet changes in the period leading up to its EU presidency. Ireland’s health minister James Reilly, embroiled in a scandal involving allegations of favouritism over contracts for the construction of new health centres in his home constituency, remains in place in spite of persistent calls for his resignation.

The Taoiseach (prime minister), Enda Kenny, is thought to be planning a major cabinet reshuffle immediately following the presidency, and Reilly is thought to be top of the hit-list. There is also a battle within the cabinet to grab the seat on the European Commission of Máire Geoghegan-Quinn once her term expires in 2014. Environment minister Phil Hogan is favourite to emerge as the Fine Gael candidate, while Labour is likely to put forward education minister Ruairi Quinn.

Perhaps nothing has exposed the deep rifts between Ireland’s politicians as starkly as the re-energised debate over its abortion law, following the death of a pregnant Indian woman in an Irish hospital last month. She was refused an abortion even though her life was in danger, with a member of the hospital’s staff allegedly telling her “this is a Catholic country”.

Protests by pro-choice campaigners have rocked Dublin over the past month. They are demanding that the Irish parliament pass emergency legislation to end the total ban on abortion. A referendum in 1983 made unborn children Irish citizens with full rights.

Ireland has changed a great deal since then, witness the landmark speech by Kenny in July 2011 in response to a report on child abuse in the Irish Catholic church.

“This is not Rome,” he said. “Nor is it industrial-school or Magdalene Ireland, where the swish of a soutane smothered conscience and humanity and the swing of a thurible ruled the Irish-Catholic world. This is the Republic of Ireland 2011.” Yet the abortion issue remains as divisive as ever, particularly between the governing coalition partners. Even many younger members of Fine Gael are anti-abortion in all cases.

On Tuesday (18 December) Reilly announced that the government will propose legislation to do what a 1992 Irish supreme court decision and a 2010 European Court of Human Rights have already ordered them to do – legalise abortion when the mother’s life is in danger. But the law may not allow abortions in the case of rape or incest, meaning Ireland’s abortion law will remain among the most restrictive in Europe.

The legislation has a bumpy ride ahead of it in parliament, with several members of Fine Gael saying they will vote against any law that liberalises abortion. On the other side, junior health minister Kathleen Lynch of the Labour party has warned that the measures do not go far enough.

With these internal divisions pulling its government in different directions, the Ireland of 2013 may well find itself distracted by uncertainty and disunity at home as it gets to grips with the EU presidency. Well may it declare ‘stability’ to be one of its three presidential guiding principles.